Best Buy "Speech"

It's the perfect season for brands to bank on animation to give their ad messages the festive punch and familiar flavor of classic holiday specials. Best Buy’s latest gives us a Santa story with a new recruit, a tech-savvy, goateed elf with an iPad under his arm. The idea here is to showcase the fact that Best Buy offers tech support for all those snazzy new gadgets that will be under the tree, even on Christmas Day. And like a motivational speaker, the new addition tries to rally the workshop about helping people set up all their new toys. Of course, the enthusiastic goodwill of the elf crew flips to wide-eyed silence in response, since they’ve just learned they have to work on the holiday. Consumers, however, should appreciate the message, since they will be anxious to get their gifts up and running as soon as possible. And if Kenneth the Blue Elf sounds familiar, it’s because Tom Kenny, aka SpongeBob SquarePants, provides the voiceover. The Blue Elf will star in subsequent spots. Will his fellow elves accept him? Just like Hermey -- the Rankin/Bass misfit elf that dreamed of being a dentist -- exuberant Kenneth could find his path to acceptance as painful as pulling teeth. --Eleftheria Parpis

It's the perfect season for brands to bank on animation to give their ad messages the festive punch and familiar flavor of classic holiday specials. Best Buy’s latest gives us a Santa story with a new recruit, a tech-savvy, goateed elf with an iPad under his arm. The idea here is to showcase the fact that Best Buy offers tech support for all those snazzy new gadgets that will be under the tree, even on Christmas Day. And like a motivational speaker, the new addition tries to rally the workshop about helping people set up all their new toys. Of course, the enthusiastic goodwill of the elf crew flips to wide-eyed silence in response, since they’ve just learned they have to work on the holiday. Consumers, however, should appreciate the message, since they will be anxious to get their gifts up and running as soon as possible. And if Kenneth the Blue Elf sounds familiar, it’s because Tom Kenny, aka SpongeBob SquarePants, provides the voiceover. The Blue Elf will star in subsequent spots. Will his fellow elves accept him? Just like Hermey -- the Rankin/Bass misfit elf that dreamed of being a dentist -- exuberant Kenneth could find his path to acceptance as painful as pulling teeth. --Eleftheria Parpis